Ardour 9 was released recently and I think you should take a look at it.

[Nathanananan]

Ardour 9 now runs on MacOs Windows and of course Linux!

I really think you should take a look at the video and see the new features and download the software to give it try.
Ardour 9 can now be your main daw especially now with all the telemetry bs and phoning home, companies acquiring other companies and all the bs that comes with non open source software.

You can get it for free if you know how to compile the source code or you can pay as low as $1 a month and get the software with all the updates. This is not a normal subscription the software is always yours to keep you don't need to pay more than $1 if that is all you can afford.

[Nathanananan]

Because this is open source free software :If anyone needs a copy of it just let me know and I can give one to you so you can try it out.

[willy_dinglefinger]

I'm a subscriber but I only use stable versions so never tested any of the nightlies / never got much of a peek at the new stuff. This release is brilliant and adds a lot of nifty usability features.

But this is KVR so expect the kids to show their faces soon and post a deluge of negative shit.

[Papuzzo]

The direction Microsoft is taking with Windows had me thinking it was about time to finally migrate to another OS. I recently installed Ubuntu Studio on an old PC and it came with Ardour. I was surprised that it is rather full featured and most likely could run everything I really need, but there are some plugins like Kontakt that are problematic without Wine and other compatibility layers. My guess is most people who are hobbyists should be able to use just Ardour in Linux with native plugins. Then I found that Reaper also ran great in Linux. Sadly, Ableton Live is not native. I finally decided to get a Mac Mini and if Apple eventually follows Microsoft with all this telemetry and AI bullshit I will migrate to Linux.

[willy_dinglefinger]

If you're not ready to get off the enshittification gravy train, then Ardour is also available for Mac OS and Windows. Just saying.

(On that note - if you're already on Linux but don't like Ardour, then there's Reaper, Bitwig, Mixbus, Studio One, Renoise, Tracktion and more all native)

[summer2000]

Because this is open source free software :If anyone needs a copy of it just let me know and I can give one to you so you can try it out.

Sent you a PM.

[TheMayDJMH]

Because this is open source free software :If anyone needs a copy of it just let me know and I can give one to you so you can try it out.

Count me in!

[Tiles]

A free open source software for the price of one dollar? Too expensive ...

[willy_dinglefinger]

A free open source software for the price of one dollar? Too expensive ...

I know, right Tiles? It is outrageous!!1!

I don't know about you, but I'm absolutely appalled by this and feel I must complain. This is important.

If Ardour were really free and open-source then surely you'd be free to do anything with it that you want (including use it on as many machines as you wish, make copies of it for friends)...?

And what's more, if Ardour were really free and open-source, surely you could get the source code without charge, and build (and modify) the program yourself...?

It is outrageous!!1!

[ampetrosillo]

I've been contributing a single dollar a month for a few years now. I don't actually use Ardour, and I'm not under any delusion that my single dollar a month is a significant contribution, but it is symbolic support nonetheless and it does allow me to peek into Ardour every now and then, because the concept of Ardour is fine (an open-source DAW, at least as an alternative option should the rest of the DAW world move to something like a subscription service or just wither and die). I'm not really enamoured with its ProTools-isms and general layout (I'm a Reaper user and a lot of the rigidity of the ProTools DAW concept makes little sense to me), but I can see that Ardour is a capable DAW nonetheless. I'd miss a lot of features that I take for granted, but that's because the Reaper paradigm is much different.

[Tiles]

I don't have anything against the project in general. I like every open source project.

But have you really not noticed the little contradiction in offering something “for free” while also asking for money, all in the same sentence? Even a single cent technically makes it commercial software, so it’s no longer fully free.

Open source doesn’t have to be free. You can absolutely sell it like any other commercial software, and many projects do that successfully. In that case, though, it might be clearer not to call it free. Otherwise it can feel a bit misleading.

Another thing that caught my attention as an open source developer is offering the source code while mentioning that compiling it is complicated, undocumented, and unsupported. That seems a bit at odds with the open source spirit. But of course, that’s just my personal perspective.

Either way, the running joke of “buy this free software for just a dollar” really made me smile

[ampetrosillo]

I don't have anything against the project in general. I like every open source project.

But have you really not noticed the little contradiction in offering something “for free” while also asking for money, all in the same sentence? Even a single cent technically makes it commercial software, so it’s no longer fully free.

Open source doesn’t have to be free. You can absolutely sell it like any other commercial software, and many projects do that successfully. In that case, though, it might be clearer not to call it free. Otherwise it can feel a bit misleading.

Another thing that caught my attention as an open source developer is offering the source code while mentioning that compiling it is complicated, undocumented, and unsupported. That seems a bit at odds with the open source spirit. But of course, that’s just my personal perspective.

Either way, the running joke of “buy this free software for just a dollar” really made me smile

Each open source project devises its own funding strategy. Usually:

- none. The project is a purely "personal hobby".
- Patreon or other subscriptions with premium content.
- guilt tripping the user (a la Wikipedia).

Paul Davis's strategy is kind of a combination of the latter two. The idea is that the source is there if you want it, but I won't help you with it. If you want compiled binaries that are guaranteed to work, either subscribe (at any amount you want) or buy a major version as a one-off. If you want to keep Ardour alive, you either take on the project yourself (through a fork, perhaps) or you contribute financially to the project.

Paul Davis is not exactly the friendliest or most agreeable person on Earth, but he's been working on this DAW for 25 years and the project still has some momentum (arguably, more than ever). He is very opinionated on a lot of things and he might best be described as caustic, but he mostly knows what he's doing (I do believe that he doesn't dog-food his DAW enough, so he doesn't appreciate some aspects of music making, and he focuses a lot on infrastructure details. It is a design philosophy that feels a bit like hardware).

In essence, Ardour is a DAW that tends to work well (or best) in one precise setting: the professional studio, with little/less reliance on plugins and lots of outboard gear. That kind of workflow is well addressed. More ITB workflows, perhaps not as well.

[willy_dinglefinger]

The points of contention have already been sufficiently addressed, I believe. Look here, for instance - https://ardour.org/faq.html#libre-free

Anyone and everyone can disagree with Paul's approach and with the Ardour project in general but there's a level of transparency, brutal honesty and humanity in the whole thing that's a real breathe of fresh air, in my view. Especially in the context of our modern hyper-normalised enshittified human world. And I'd argue it's effective.

And on a final note, while I'm in defensive mode, Ardour provides instructions for building from source (https://ardour.org/building_linux.html) and if you poke around the forums then you'll likely find the main devs (namely Robin and Paul) regularly chiming in with advice, feedback, tips, whatever. But it's correct that, understandably, the scope of support doesn't cover building from source - any expectation for this would be unreasonable I think.

[Tiles]

*heavy sigh*

Friends, have you even understood that for me it was just about the free for just a dollar joke. No need for any defences

[ampetrosillo]

The points of contention have already been sufficiently addressed, I believe. Look here, for instance - https://ardour.org/faq.html#libre-free

Anyone and everyone can disagree with Paul's approach and with the Ardour project in general but there's a level of transparency, brutal honesty and humanity in the whole thing that's a real breathe of fresh air, in my view. Especially in the context of our modern hyper-normalised enshittified human world. And I'd argue it's effective.

And on a final note, while I'm in defensive mode, Ardour provides instructions for building from source (https://ardour.org/building_linux.html) and if you poke around the forums then you'll likely find the main devs (namely Robin and Paul) regularly chiming in with advice, feedback, tips, whatever. But it's correct that, understandably, the scope of support doesn't cover building from source - any expectation for this would be unreasonable I think.

Make no mistake, when I say that Paul Davis can be caustic, it wasn't meant as an outright dismissal of the guy. And yes, I'd much rather have that than both manipulative and policed communication.